Peshawar: Earlier today Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Razman Shah and eleven other 'TTP' fighters surrendered to security forces in the Kalaya area of Orakzai Agency. Razman Shah is believed to be an important commander of the banned militant group's Orakzai wing. The other 'militants' include Meer Khan, Shahid, Abdullah, Ameenullah, Mohammad Ameen, Irfan, Hazrat Mohammad, Meela Khan, Speen Mir Khan, Mohammad Adeel and Dinullah.

According to our police sources these 12 'TTP' men who have laid down their arms previously belonged to this banned terrorist organization and were wanted by security forces because of their involvement in different terrorist activities  Orakzai is one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in the northwest, where Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants are said to have carved out strongholds over the years with massive recruits. This  was a key abode of former Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakimullah Mehsud before he was killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan in 2013.

Pakistan's military has intensified its operations against militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in the aftermath of deadly Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar that killed 150 people, mostly children in December 2014. Earlier in June this year, Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asim Bajwa had said that 2,763 suspected terrorists had been killed in the North Waziristan since the commencement of Operation Zarb-i-Azb last year.

He said that thousands of suspected terrorists and their abettors had been apprehended whereas ‘218 hardcore terrorists’ were killed in around 9,000 intelligence-based-operations (IBOs), while nearly 350 military men lost their lives in the fight against militancy in protecting their country.